Wandrei

20/10/1189 TA

Wandrei: a world of magic, technology, faith, and science. Where the gods used to walk among the mortals of this world, now only the echoes remain, and their mortal followers beseech them daily for guidance and moral redemption. Where titans and vast elementals shaped the lands and wrought the geography of the world, now only their handiwork remains. For aeons, mortals have been alone on Wandrei, influenced by the outer powers who shaped their home. Their empires have risen and fallen, time and again, as they bicker and fight over their perceived birthrights, all the while discovering new magics, technologies, and even undiscovered relics and sanctums of the gods.

While the current major powers are under relative peace, forces beyond the material plane are stirring to throw the world into chaos once more. Far away in the outer regions of space, in the Far Realms, reside the Outer Gods. Once the rulers of Wandrei before being driven out by the mortal's gods, the Outer Ones and their kin the Great Old Ones have been quietly biding their time, waiting to one day take over the mortal plane again. Their servants are more abundant than ever before, and only time will tell whether they will succeed in summoning their eldritch lords to their former domain, or whether someone will stop them--delaying the inevitable doom of Wandrei, at least for a time.

Wandrei's brand of science is rooted in its magics. While technology is fairly prevalent, most of it is powered exclusively by magic, especially the great machines that run most of the production in Wandrei. Great flying ships wander from major civilization to major civilization, powered by pure magic; large factories produce textiles and other goods at rapid paces, with forges and foundries powered and automated by arcane-fueled automatons.

Our story takes place mostly in Arkham Country, a large kingdom to the east of Wandrei, past Hyborea and the deserts of Severn. The Derleth Mountains, standing tall and near-impassable, separate the Country from the rest of its landlocked neighbors, making Arkham nearly dependent entirely on sea travel and, after the advent of skyships, air travel. It is a place of studious magic and science, and of little faith in the Gods--making it the prime location for the Elder Gods' return to the mortal plane. Far to the northeast lies the dead, sunken city-continent of R'Lyeh, where the Great Old One Cthulhu sleeps, waiting to be revived; to the southeast, the Deep Ones have carved out an empire beneath the waves, where their ancestor-god Father Dagon conspires to overthrow the surface dwellers; in back alleys and decrepit theatres, where mad artists paint and manic poets perform, the King in Yellow flaunts his Pallid Mask and leads his entourage of the dead to sow discord and chaos at the behest of Hastur, the Outer God of time and space; and behind closed doors, in every place of power in the kingdom, a servant of the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep, conspires to draw influential people into the thrall of their master, so he could use them to open the gate for dread Azathoth, the Demon Sultan, to bring about the end of time. Only time will tell if an intrepid mortal shall gather up the courage and power to oppose these destructive forces, and end the threat to the mortal realm.